Tracking Who Hasn’t Turned in Their Form
One thing is true about programs for children. There certainly is a lot of paperwork to keep track of – registration forms, physician reports, agency approvals, field trip permission slips – you name it. How do you keep track of who still needs to turn in which forms? Although you can sift through the pile of papers on your desk to see who did turn in their forms, it’s the opposite thing you really need to know – who did not. How can you easily generate a follow up list to see which families need a reminder?
Tracking Category – “Need Forms”
A good way to approach this is to create Child Tracking (or Family Tracking) categories for each type of form needed. Tracking categories are created in Family Data Setup. Then be sure to assign the appropriate tracking categories to each family. For example, when someone new enrolls, mark all the “form needed” categories on their Family Information Screen. Then as they turn them in, simply uncheck that form from the list. Now you have an accurate record of who still needs to turn in each form.
Get a List of Families & Missing Forms
Just print a report, like a School Directory (General Reports > Family Data > Special Reports – Letter K) and set the Primary Sort to Child Tracking. Then select just one Child Tracking item at a time, like “Need Forms: Registration” from the Child Tracking button. Only families with children who still need to turn in that form will be displayed.
Send Family a Letter or Email
You may also Select Families, with a certain form due, and send them a letter (or email) from Letter Merge. Within the body of your letter you could type in the name of the form. You might save several different versions of the letter to account for various forms that need to be turned in.
Tracking getting full? Try Bus Runs
Although you may have up to 800 different items in Child Tracking you may want to use the Bus Runs category instead. This would make sense if you’re not using Bus Runs at all, or if you just have a few items in there. If you have many items in Child Tracking you may find it easier to scroll through a short list under Bus Runs.
We are currently considering ways a next generation product from ProCare might make it easier to track things like forms and paperwork. One idea is to allow you to create your own categories (as mentioned in a previous post). Rather than using the preset “child tracking” or “bus runs” you might be able to make one specifically called “paperwork”, “DHS forms” or “registration forms”, etc. Another suggestion has been to insert lists of forms needed per family into a letter or email, or perhaps make it available online at some sort of family information site. All good ideas. We’ll just have to wait and see what the future holds.
I’d like to close by saying thank you to Heidi from Valley View Christian Preschool for her inspiration for this article.
Keep the good ideas coming and until next time, cheers!
P.S. There’s more good information on using ProCare Tracking Categories in Doug’s Article.
If you have questions or comments about this article (or suggestions for another article) I’d be pleased to hear from you. Drop me at note at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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